Monthly Archives: August 2014

SpongeBob SquarePants Rock Bottom Plunge is an indoor roller coaster located in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s indoors so the height is limited to a mere 67 feet, but it boasts a steep 97 degree drop and a vertical leap. It only goes 40 miles per hour, but it seems to go faster than that. It’s a short but exhilarating ride. It’s not the best coaster I’ve been on, but it’s one of the most memorable. My favorite part is the ascent, where you slowly climb up at a nearly ninety degree angle. You start to question your decision to ride it as you steadily rise up to the roof of the mall, but there’s no escape so you just have to embrace your fear and try to survive the first plunge. If you don’t hurl right then and there, the rest of the ride is amazingly fun. Hopefully nobody hurls on you.
Critically Rated at 12/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

The Chuck Taylor All Star is virtually synonymous with sneakers. When someone mentions sneakers, a vision of Chuck Taylors should pop into your head. The shoes were first created by the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in 1917 and was known the All Star. Then a professional basketball player name Charles “Chuck” Taylor became a spokesman for the company and tweaked the design enough that they became known as the Chuck Taylor All Star. They come in a variety of styles, colors, and patterns but they are all distinctly Chuck Taylors. They are an iconic shoe, easily recognized and embraced by cool and casual people everywhere. They are the epitome of comfort. You’ll buy a pair of Chucks and wear them every day until they fall apart. They are the staple footwear of concertgoers and festival attendees everywhere. I just spent the weekend at Outside Lands and saw a pair of Chuck Taylors on every fifth person, myself included. I don’t rock my Chucks every day, but I always feel like I’m apart of an exclusive club when I do.

Bud Light Lime Raz-Ber-Rita is a raspberry flavored malt beverage that isn’t sure if it wants to be a beer or a margarita. It has the sweet and tangy raspberry flavor combined with the mellow zing of a Bud Light Lime. It’s a weird concoction. They suggest that you pour it over ice. You should never pour beer over ice. I don’t know why they want you to pour it over ice. Just sip it from the can like a normal person. It’s still a Bud Light no matter what artificial flavors and syrups they add to it. The can says that it’s a Margarita with a Twist. I’m guessing the twist is that it doesn’t have any tequila in it. That’s pretty unusual for a margarita. The most redeeming feature of this mediocre drink is the fact that it’s 8% alcohol by volume so you’ll get more buzzed drinking one of these than a regular Budweiser. I really wouldn’t recommend either.

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The weekend of August 8-10, 2014 marked the return of San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival. Outside Lands is personal to me. It’s a major music festival that happens to be two blocks from my house. I could listen to it through my bedroom window but it’s much more exciting to experience it in person and that’s what I usually do. I’ve gotten a three-day pass for six out of the seven years that it’s been in existence. I still went to the park and listened to it for free the one year I didn’t buy tickets. So believe me when I say that I know Outside Lands. I fucking know Outside Lands.

This year was different from most years, reflecting the growing changes in the music industry. The headliners were big established acts as they typically are. But the other bands were more obscure and less mainstream. A lot of the bands onstage only have a couple of albums or hit singles worth mentioning. Friday night’s dual headliners were Kanye West and Arctic Monkeys. Saturday night featured Macklemore & Ryan Lewis trying to compete against Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (Petty won). Sunday night was either Tiësto or The Killers. I mostly main staged it, so I watched Kanye, Petty, and The Killers. Kanye’s crowd was rowdy and more physical than any other crowd I’ve experienced. Shit was getting hostile. I saw a lot of pushing, shoving, yelling, and a couple of fights. It didn’t help that Kanye was encouraging people to form circles and to start moshing. Promoting violence isn’t the best idea when people are crammed together like sardines and tempers are already flaring. Petty’s crowd was a lot more diverse. There were teenagers, there were old people, there were families, and it was a much lighter and fun experience. Petty headlined the first OSL and it was great to have him back. The Killers were a great act to close out Outside Lands and they played an extra ten minutes after they were supposed to stop. You have to appreciate that kind of showmanship.

Other bands that I saw (in order): Aer, Bleachers, Holy Ghost!, Chromeo, Disclosure, The Kooks, Local Natives, Haim, Death Cab For Cutie, Imelda May, Flume, Spoon, and The Flaming Lips. Bleachers were awesome, Haim were memorable, Death Cab killed it, and The Flaming Lips were eccentric as always. There were way too many bands to see and not enough time to see them all. You really have to pick and choose and have a definite agenda for each day or else you will be overwhelmed and see nothing.

Cell phone service was much improved this year. You could actually make phone calls and texts wouldn’t take twenty minutes to send. It got crowded earlier than previous years. It was pretty packed by 3:00 or 4:00 PM. Bathroom lines were almost always ridiculous unless you got really lucky. Food and beer lines were manageable but annoying. Security was the most strict on the first day. They actually went through my bags and made me unroll my towel and unfold my sweatshirt. They still didn’t find my booze, but they made quite an effort. They didn’t even check my bag on Saturday or Sunday. I guess I stopped looking shady.

Outside Lands is always a great time. This year didn’t have the best lineup, but that just meant I had more time to hang out with friends and meet new people. I grew increasingly sad as Sunday night came to a close and the festival ended. I woke up depressed on Monday morning and trudged off to work and back to real life. Outside Lands isn’t just a weekend festival. It’s home. And I want to go home. But I can’t for another year. At least I have something to look forward to.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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Beachwood BBQ Brewing, Heretic Brewing Company, and Stone Brewing Co. are three major breweries and they teamed up to create Unapologetic IPA, a Double India Pale Ale with more flavor than you can shake a stick at. I don’t know why you would shake a stick at an IPA, but it’s cool with me if you’re into that sort of thing. It pours an amber orange color with a thick white head. I get whiffs of pine and resin hops, citrus, florals, fruit, spice, and a little grass. The taste isn’t as bitter as I thought it would be. I get lots of pine hops with a malty backbone and hints of citrus, lemon peel, grapefruit peel, orange peel, grass, caramel, and dark fruits. It also has an 8.8% ABV, but you can’t taste the alcohol. It’s simply an enjoyable and drinkable seasonal IPA that you have to enjoy it while you can. So get one and enjoy it.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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Robin Williams passed away on August 11, 2014 and so did a piece of my childhood. Hook was my favorite movie when I was a kid. I know every single moment and can recite it line for line. I literally grew up watching Robin Williams. I remember seeing Mrs. Doubtfire, Aladdin, Jumanji, and What Dreams May Come in theaters. I even taped that episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? that he appeared on. And now he’s gone and I can’t believe it. His death is significant. It has meaning. You’ll always remember where you where and what you were doing when you found out that Robin Williams died. It’s sad because he made you happy. He was born to entertain but he couldn’t deal with his depression. Someone who brings that much joy to the world shouldn’t be suffering.

Williams was wild and crazy, but still seemed warm and inviting. He crafted a unique persona that made you feel like you know him. And that’s why his death feels like a friend died. He made an impact on your life whether you want to acknowledge it or not. He was a controversial comedian and not the best of role models, but you can’t deny that he was a celebrity among celebrities and accomplished what most of us can only dream of. He won’t be forgotten. More importantly, he deserves to be remembered.

I was at a restaurant last night enjoying a nice meal with some good friends when we were interrupted by one of the servers with an important announcement. Apparently it was Pablo’s thirty-first birthday and he chose to celebrate in that particular establishment and the server wanted everybody to wish him a happy birthday. The server counted to three and the entire restaurant started singing “Happy Birthday” to a stranger. We were all united for ninety seconds while we sang loudly and off-key. Then we went right back to enjoying our food and ignoring Pablo. Such is the way of the world: we will acknowledge a birthday briefly but nobody really cares.

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August 7, 2014 is National IPA Day, a day to celebrate any beer fortunate enough to be labeled an India Pale Ale. IPAs are known for their bitter and hoppy taste and date back to the early 1800s when the British had to send beer that wouldn’t spoil to India. IPAs have a lot more flavor than domestic lagers and have an acquired taste. Nobody truly enjoys their first IPA. You have to keep drinking them before you start appreciating them. I started drinking them a few years ago and now consider craft brewed IPAs to be my go-to beer. Bold taste, high alcohol percentage, filling… all hallmarks of a delicious beer to me. You don’t need a real reason to drink good beer, but National IPA Day is a good excuse to do so. I’m commemorating the holiday with a nice stout because I’m a rebel like that.

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A greatest hits album is an album by a musical artist or group that contains some of their biggest hits. A lot of artists don’t like them because they feel like their singles belong to the album from which they came. They don’t like taking songs from different albums, eras, and phases and cramming them together. But you can’t deny the appeal of a greatest hits album to the audience. You get an album of all the best songs without any filler material. You get to experience more of the range and scope of their music. And it’s less of a dent on your wallet, which is always good. The first greatest hits album I ever bought was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was the best decision I ever made. I knew that I liked “Free Fallin’” and “The Waiting” but I had no idea what was in store for me. I bought it, opened it, and shoved it in the car stereo and went for a drive. The first few chords of “American Girl” came on and my life was forever changed. I played that CD on repeat for the next few weeks. I went out and bought almost every single Tom Petty album I could. I’ve seen him in concert three times, soon to be four. I became a huge Tom Petty fan, all thanks to his greatest hits album. I’ve gone and bought a bunch of other greatest hits albums from other artists ranging from Neil Young to ZZ Top to the Doobie Brothers. Each greatest hit album purchase has led to me buying other individual albums from those artists. A good greatest hits album is like an advertisement that you pay to listen to, and then you go out and spend more money on their other albums. You get more entertainment, they get more cash in their pockets, everybody wins.

Gatorade Fierce Green Apple is a green apple flavored sports drink from Gatorade’s Fierce lineup. It’s not Fierce Green Apple, it’s Green Apple from Gatorade Fierce. Either way, it’s green apple flavored. It’s tastes like a liquidized version of a green Jolly Rancher, only watered down. It’s kind of sweet but still retains the sourness of a Granny Smith apple. It tastes good, but I don’t think it’s chuggable and Gatorade should be chuggable. You need to replenish your electrolytes as fast as possible and you can’t do that if you can’t chug it. This is the type of Gatorade that you would get when you’re just a thirsty dude, not when you’re doing something athletic. It’s also a limited edition flavor so you only have a small window to experience it. I don’t know when the window is closing either, so you better get on it right away if you want to try some. Carpe Greenum – Seize the Green.

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One of the most traumatic experiences from my childhood involved using the wrong toothbrush. My parents were thrifty and bought us one Sonicare toothbrush and gave us each a color-coded brush head. My older sister had blue, I had green, my younger sister had red, and the youngest had yellow. We had to take turns brushing our teeth, but that wasn’t a big deal because we all went to bed at different times. One day I saw my older sister using the green brush head, and I got mad and told her that the green one was mine. She denied it and said that I had the blue one and that she had been using the green one ever since we got it. I picked up the blue brush head and saw that the bristles were untouched and that it had never been used. I felt sick to my stomach. It’s bad enough if you find out that someone used your toothbrush once without you knowing. It’s much worse to find out that you’ve been sharing the same toothbrush with someone else, especially when it’s your sister. I felt dirty. I still do. I can’t look my sister in the eye to this day.

I used to keep a journal when I was growing up. Not a diary, a journal. I wrote down the memorable things that I did each day from off and on from the ages of ten to about twenty-four. I would write down the friends that I hung out with, the movies I saw, the games I went to, the restaurants I dined at, the places I visited, the girls I got and the ones who slipped away. I don’t know exactly why I would write things down, but I knew that I didn’t want to forget my experiences and it seemed like a good way to preserve my memories. And it worked because I just picked up an old journal and glanced through it. I relived parties and poker games in LA, the exact day I decided I would move to San Francisco, the forging of new friendships, and the time I jumped out of a plane. An old journal is a portal to the past. I kind of wish that I would have kept writing one. But CriticallyRated.com is a more than adequate substitute and I’d prefer you read this than my diary. I mean journal. Journal, not diary.

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I grew up in a magical land called California, a place where it is considered normal to put ketchup on hot dogs. I only found out a few years ago that this addition is considered blasphemy to the frankfurter community at large. Mustard is the only truly acceptable condiment allowed, and that relish, onions, and sauerkraut are all welcome additions before ketchup can even be considered. It’s somewhat disheartening to find out that I’ve been eating hot dogs wrong my whole life but I refuse to change. Not only do hot dogs taste better with ketchup, they taste hella better if you’re from Northern California like me. If you want to limit your palate with only mustard, that’s fine. It just means that there’s more ketchup for me.

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Shark Attack Double Red Ale is an American Amber/Red Ale from California’s Port Brewing. It pours a dark red color (as you should expect) with a thick creamy head. It has a rich caramel malt scent with traces of citrus, pine, resin, dark chocolate, raisin, and toffee. The taste is mostly hops with citrus, pine, florals, caramel, raisin, and dark dried fruits. It’s pretty well balanced with a lot of flavor and tons of carbonation. It’s bold, smooth, and drinkable. It has a hefty 9.0% ABV so you should be slightly cautious when drinking it. A very delicious, flavorful, and exciting beer that I can’t wait to try again.

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Guardians of the Galaxy is a 2014 blockbuster superhero/sci-fi flick from Marvel Studios. It follows the adventures of Peter Quill a.k.a. Star-Lord (played by Chris Pratt) as he comes into contact with a mysterious orb that everybody in the galaxy seems to want. Quill forms an alliance with a couple of random aliens as they attempt to prevent the evil Ronan and his forces from obtaining the orb. Guardians of the Galaxy has all the hallmarks of a Marvel movie. It has interesting characters, intense action scenes, spectacular special effects, humor, heart, and a sense of adventure. But it’s a bit of a letdown, especially compared to The Avengers.

The plot is fairly typical of most Marvel films. The main characters find a mysterious object of unimaginable power and must form an unsteady alliance from all the bad guys who want it too. The good guys find it, the bad guys find out they have it, the good guys go on the run, the bad guys go on the chase, the bad guys get the object, the good guys get it back, there’s some inevitable betrayal and the bad guys get it back, all hope seems lost until the good guys come up with a plan, they put their plan into action, there’s a climactic fight scene where everything is at stake, and the good guys get the object back and win, then there’s fifteen minutes of credits rolling, followed by a thirty second long scene that teases the next Marvel movie.

The cast is not to blame for the movie’s failings, but maybe their chemistry is. They don’t have any. Chris Pratt describes his character as a combination of Han Solo and Marty McFly, but he lacks the charisma of Harrison Ford and the charm of Michael J. Fox. He shouldn’t be the centerpiece of a major Hollywood franchise. Zoe Saldana plays Gamora, an alien assassin who first tries to kill Quill and then ends up joining him. Zoe Saldana is best known for playing a blue alien in Avatar, and she gets to showcase her acting chops by playing a green alien in this movie. Dave Bautista plays Drax the Destroyer, an angry brute of minimal intelligence. He doesn’t bring much to the team, but he provides the film with some of its funniest moments. Vin Diesel plays Groot, a CG tree with only one line of dialog that he repeats throughout the movie. Bradley Cooper plays Rocket Raccoon, a furry little alien that resembles a raccoon but isn’t really a raccoon. He had the potential to be the film’s best character and he has his moments, but nothing he does really stands out.

One thing that bugs me is the Walkman motif. Quill has a Walkman with a mix tape that his mom gave him before she died. He listens to the mix tape for over twenty-six years in space. The tape would fucking deteriorate. The sound quality would be terrible. I don’t know why they couldn’t have used a Discman instead of a Walkman. CDs have much better sound quality and are way more durable then cassette tapes. Kids today don’t even know what a Walkman is. They’ve never seen a mix tape. CDs aren’t that popular anymore but kids still know what they are.

Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t a bad movie. It’s not a good movie either. It’s just a summer blockbuster, and that’s disappointing because I expect more from Marvel Studios. See it if you were planning on seeing it, but I wouldn’t recommend wasting your money if you’re on the fence about it.

Dogma is an ale brewed with honey, kola nut, poppy seed and guarana from Scotland’s BrewDog brewery. It pours a dark brown color with a red tint and a thick tan head. It has a nutty malt aroma with hints of spice, honey, caramel, honey, dark chocolates, and citrus. The tastes is as rich and complex as you would expect. Lots of malt, honey, caramel, toffee, nuts, coffee, herbs, spice, and a touch of wood. This a dessert beer. It has a 7.8% ABV so it’s decently strong. It’s too heavy to drink all day, I think one or two of these would be enough before I’d move on to something else. I like it but not enough to go out of my way to get it again.

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Today was the first day off in a few weeks where I had the chance to do laundry. I took all my dirty clothes to the laundromat, plunked down a few quarters, and started to wash them. I came back after thirty minutes to throw my clothes into the drier. As I was transferring my clothes from the washer to the drier, I found a piece of a yellow crayon. I tossed it away and didn’t think much of it. I came back thirty minutes later to get my clothes and that’s when I discovered that remnants from the yellow crayon had survived the transition from the washer to the drier and melted onto a bunch of my shirts, jeans, socks, and boxers. Melted yellow crayon looks a lot like mustard stains in case you were wondering. It looks like I got in a fight with a hot dog and got my ass kicked. It’s fucking bullshit. I don’t even know where that fucking crayon came from. Who carries around yellow crayons? I’m a little placated because I also found a twenty-dollar bill in the wash. But twenties don’t remove crayon stains so I’m still pissed off. Hashtag first world problems.